Anatomy Man

This is another mixed media print titled "Anatomy Man". It started with a background similar to the one posted 4-29-08. Anatomy Man is another found image. The horizontal bars in the background reminded me of a rib cage and the looping organic forms reminded me of intestines and other vessels. After it was done I was wondering how I had come up with that pose. Later, while browsing through a book of mine titled "Mechanics of the Mind" I was reminded of the old plate of a skeleton that I had viewed at an earlier time. I find it interesting how that image (pose) was retained in my mind.

Casey Nugent Senior Show

Mark and I drove to Menomonie to see Casey's Senior Show at the University of Wisconsin Stout on Friday. Casey is going to school for Industrial Design. He has one more class to go next Semester. Casey is hoping to get an internship for the Summer or Fall. Anyone interested?... plug from Mom.

His senior project was a compressed air engine. Casey designed and built everything shown including the display stand.

I enjoyed seeing all of the other students projects. The Senior Shows for Interior Design and Graphic Arts were also included.

The white colored models of the engine and car were actually printed from a computer program. Pretty amazing!

The last car is a clay model.

I'm quite proud of him! Makes me want to go back to school.

Rearing Haflinger

"Rearing Haflinger" is the name of this monoprint. A Haflinger is a breed of horse with similiar coloring and body style as my print. The background is similiar to ones used for some of my chameleons. I found an image of a horse in the background and developed it by accentuating images that went with the horse theme. I love how this horse emerged from the background. I would have never thought to make one in this pose and style simply starting with a piece of white paper with the idea of making a horse.

Raven Monoprints

I recently finished these two Ravens. They are from a series of 7 monoprints. They were printed from the inked plate after several stencils had been made first. The backgrounds are opposites. One printed with images on an inked plate, the other printed with images removed from the inked plate. I cut out shapes, used feathers and string. The backgrounds were made without anything specific in mind. I had drawn a crow using the same technique as the chameleon. I chose these backgrounds simply because I had used feathers on them. It was really interesting how they seemed to fall into place with the design of the crow. Because of their placement I decided to make it look like the crow had it's feet on them. I then used colored pencils to to color in the crow and bring out and hide features in the background. In future posts I will show how my other crow monoprints developed using different backgrounds and stencils. This process shows a great depth of layers.

Jackson Chameleon - Printing Class

I am fortunate to be taking a Printing class from Paul Yank at the Ozaukee Art Center. Paul is a very talented artist and teacher.

Tuesday printing class is one of the artistic highlights of my week. I always leave printing class feeling motivated and energized.

For my first printing project I chose a Jackson Chameleon. My thinking was I would be able to experiment with colors with this animal choice.

For this printing process the picture actually becomes the printing plate. A plate is inked up and the drawing is traced over it. I printed a total of 9 chameleons.

The second picture is one of my backgrounds. They are created by both (placing objects over an inked plate and printing) and (removing objects and printing). I tried to not think too much about my design choices as I didn't really know what I was doing anyways :)

The third picture is one of my finished chameleons. I love the symbolism of the "changing" chameleon which could describe one aspect of my art and how I am influenced by my surroundings and other artists and love of a variety of mediums. I like the back and forth work of bringing design elements out and hiding them with the image that is placed over.

Counter

After visiting a couple of blogs I was reminded that I wanted to add a counter. So here it is on the right side of the page. I wonder why free counters are offered? Just as I wonder why anything is free on the web. Is it true "The best things in life are free" or "You pay for what you get"? It promises to be a wonderful day outside. I promised myself this Winter to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Time to go outside and work in the yard.

My Book Cover is on Amazon

Jill K. Berry announced to the yahoo book group that the cover is now on Amazon. Jill is one of the artists whose wonderful work is showcased in my book. How exciting!!! Here is the picture of the cover.

The cover doesn't show my most artistic work. But it does showcase a special person. Lena was my Granny Eleanore's sister. She never married or had any children. I am the keeper of her pictures and a few other remembrances. The middle picture features Lena, and siblings Arleigh and Mabel. The farm pictured is where they lived when they were children. Now Lena's memory can live on :) I have a project inside featuring a picture of Granny.

Interactive Art Workshop is scheduled to be released in October 2008. I hope to author many more books! Click on the amazon link on the right side of the page to purchase this book and Amazon will give me a little $

Countdown to Peace

This is what I made for the Countdown to Peace project. It is a dove (symbol of peace) collaged over an old map of the Mideast.

Tarot Card Test

I found the Tarot Card Test on Carol Stocker, from Carol ~ Spirit's Journey Designs,the winner of my OWOH giveaway. The results and link are on the side bar of this blog. What fun! I had the same card as her - interesting. I'm going to go back now and change my answers a bit to see what I get. You know when you think to much...

One World One Heart Giveaway

Carol Stocker, from Carol ~ Spirit's Journey Designs, is the winner of my OWOH giveaway. I used the random number generator (It would have come in really handy when my kids were young) that was linked to the home site of this event. The number was 46 and that was Carol!Congratulations!Kim

ONE World - ONE Heart

Linda & Opie O'brien told me about this event, they are one of seven teaching at my retreat in October 2008 RAEvN's Nest Art Retreat. It sounded like a lot of fun so I thought I would participate too! My giveaway is decorated 4"x4" mini journal with blank paper inside similiar to the one pictured. If you pull the tab on the side the gypsies eyes move back and forth. She is based on one of the projects for a book I am writing for Northlight "Interactive Art Workshop". The book is scheduled to be released October 2008. I will announce the winner on Valentines Day. Thank you for visiting my blog.

This event is the brainchild of Lisa Oceandreamer. The original idea behind this giveaway event was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way - What a wonderful idea Lisa! Click on the badge above to bring you to the host site for this event.

Miniature Show at Cedarburg Cultural Center

Here are the pieces for the Miniature Show at the Cedarburg Cultural Center. It is a juried show and a fund raiser for the center. The total size of the pieces needed to be less than 25 inches square. These pieces are 4" x 6" not including the frames. A bit smaller than I usually work. They are oil pastel drawings over photographs in which the figure has been cut out. I call them soulful birds.